September 06, 2006

7 shutout night for 1st time in 30 years: In an era of offense, batters came up blank for a night. Tuesday marked the first time in 34 years that there were seven shutouts in the major leagues on a single day.

I was at the game in Toronto last night and said something at the time about the number of goose eggs on the boards. It's nice to see some good pitching on occasion (even if it does get yanked too damned soon).

I'm in a H2H Points-based fantasy league so I was psyched to note in the morning that Doug Davis - one of the rare times he made my lineup this year - had tossed such a gem. However this was blunted when I noted that my opponent had started Bronson Arroyo!

That's actually not amazing at all. Whenever the Yankees face a pitcher I've never heard of, they get shut down. They can make the greenest rookie look like Roger Clemens for a night. They've been doing it for years. I'll have to say that I am a bit surprised that they didn't jump on the bullpen though like they did the night before. The starter only went 5.2, I believe.

I was amazed by the seven scoreless that Kason Gabbard put up for the Red Sox against their White counterparts. (Timlin followed with two scoreless in relief.) (For all of you out there saying, Kason who? Exactly.) (And on another side note, Vazquez pitched a complete game for the ChiSox, though his was the losing effort.)

I suspect that with the crackdown on steriod use, the future of baseball may be less offensive. No pun intended. That's if you assume hitters were the only ones taking steroids, and that offence increases only because of steroids, and not changes in training, bat design, offensive strategies, ballparks, ballpark locations and drafting.

Curtain Call: MLB followed up their big day of no offense with a day that saw two complete game shutouts, one a no-hitter and another delivered by Oliver Perez (of all people). In addition, the Rockies and Padres played runless ball for 10.5 innings before a September call-up, Paul McAnulty, homered to end it in 11. That game also saw a rookie -- Cla Meredith -- break the Padres' club record for consecutive scoreless innings with 29. Not to take anything away from the pitchers -- especially Sanchez's gem -- but September brings rosters dotted with more AAA quality players than the rest of the season. As managers try these guys out, especially on teams that are phoning it, it stands to reason that overall offense will show a decline. Seven shutouts in one day is pretty amazing -- especially when the victims include the White Sox and Yankees -- but over half the teams in the league are out of pennant races right now, including the Mets and Yankees who have cruise control leads. A pitcher only has to run a shutout about 4 or 5 innings before he starts to see the regulars on the other side disappearing. And rookie pitchers have an easier time when they first come up than rookie hitters, by and large. This run drought would be more surprising in June or July.